As I reach the age of 76, I find myself reflecting on my life and my own mortality. Twice in my life, I have had experiences that scared me close to death.
The first time occurred when I was working a summer job with my father at American Cystoscope. The company manufactured medical equipment and devices, including opto-digital technology for a variety of medical purposes. They also had a contract with the U.S. Army to make periscopes and other optical equipment for tanks. As a government contractor, they were required to hire teenagers for summer jobs, and so I was employed there after my sophomore year of college.
Dad made small medical instruments, like scalpels for biopsy devices. He always carried one in his wallet in case someone would ask, “What do you do?” He liked to joke that the blueprints were on a huge piece of paper, yet the device was one-half inch long.
During my time there, I was tasked with a job that involved drilling holes into a metal piece. I had no idea what I was making. I just did what they said. I had a foreman who set up the job and showed me how to work the drill press, and I did the job for hours on end. One day, I was drilling several holes into a metal piece, and I had to load it into a metal jig that ensured it was in the correct position and aligned for drilling. To drill the holes, I had to align the vertical drill above the appropriate hole in the jig and then gently pull down on the feed wheel/lever, which lowered the spinning drill into the jig.
However, I was working too quickly, and the drill bit became stuck in the metal piece in the jig. The jig, then began spinning violently, and I lost my grip on it. For a few seconds, which seemed like an eternity, I watched it spin and wobble out of control at 1000 RPM. I was standing about a foot away from this tornado of cold metal. The drill bit eventually broke causing the jig to fly 20 feet through the air and it sparked when it hit the concrete shop floor. Luckily, I was not in the way or injured. I was never asked to work on that drill press again.
The second time I was close to death occurred when I was driving to work after dropping my daughter, Andrea, off at preschool. The road was wet, and I was heading down a slight decline when I spun out of control on black ice. I headed straight for a ditch on the left side of the road, narrowly missing a telephone pole. I was then stuck in the ditch, unable to stop until the front of my car hit something and the rear swerved to the left, causing the car to roll sideways.
I don’t know how many times the car rolled, but it was enough to scare me. When I stopped, I was still in the ditch, right-side up, and perpendicular to the ditch. I couldn’t open the doors, so I climbed out of the driver’s window. Luckily, a couple of women stopped to help me out of the car and took me home. I didn’t suffer any major injuries, thanks to my seat belt, but I did have a mild AC joint separation that was caused by the seat belt.
In both instances, I was lucky to come out unscathed.
